Counterculture

Counterculture was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed in the United Kingdom and the United States that spread to the rest of the Western world during the 1960s and 1970s. London, New York City, and San Francisco would become centers for the movement, and it gained momentum as the Civil Rights movement enjoyed more successes and as the Vietnam War escalated. The movement supported "free love", women's rights, psychedelic drugs (especially marijuana and LSD), left-wing politics, and pacifism, and the rise of alternative lifestyles (such as the hippie movement) and the advent of psychedelic rock were results of the movement. The end of the draft and the Vietnam War in 1973 and Richard Nixon's August 1974 resignation as president effectively ended the era, but drug experimentation, youth rebelliousness, and alternative lifestyles would remain aspects of American society.